


Any Time

by samsg1



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Episode: s07e16 Death Knell, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:22:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22623253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samsg1/pseuds/samsg1
Summary: Dealing with the aftermath of Death Knell from Sam's perspective, hints at S/J.
Relationships: Samantha "Sam" Carter/Jack O'Neill
Comments: 13
Kudos: 64





	1. "That thing won't stop until it finds her"

**Author's Note:**

> I'm finally taking the leap out of being a very long-term lurker! This is my first ever fanfiction so please be kind!  
> Huge shoutout to tinknevertalks for firstly introducing me to fanfiction at a very tender age over 20 years ago, and secondly for beta-ing my first ever fic! 
> 
> The events in chapter 1 follow the episode Death Knell but there are certain details that have been changed slightly for smoother writing purposes; please forgive me.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam fights for survival as Anubis' drone pursues her relentlessly at the Alpha Site

Chapter 1: "That thing won't stop until it finds her"

Her face spattered with dirt and blood, her body caked in sweat and mud; every muscle in her body screaming in agony as she pushes herself to keep going. Her throat hoarse from panting and dehydration, her shredded left leg protesting at each tread onward. 

Twenty seven hours since the pursuit had begun. The blast of the Alpha Site's self-destruct still reverberating through her ears. Images of bodies and debris continue to flash through her mind. Twenty seven hours of stumbling wildly towards the hills into what was becoming a more and more desperate bid to keep the prototype from Anubis' clutches. Anubus’ drone had seemingly honed in on her from the get-go, relentlessly stalking her through the forest. The device she and her father had been working on burns in her pocket like a beacon, drawing the pursuer to her like an unstoppable magnet. Her heart lurches as she thinks of her father- has he even survived? Has the gate survived the blast? Was rescue even possible? Or was her evasion only delaying the inevitable?

Exhaustion was taking over. Legs buckling from over-use she stumbles and hits the ground, her mouth filling with dirt. Face down and disoriented she takes a moment to realize what has happened, when a twig crack snaps her back to the present. 

Gasping out of breath, adrenaline coursing through her veins causing her heart to hammer, she wills her lungs to draw breath as silently as possible and bade her heart to stop pummeling at her ribs for fear the drone would hear either. Her ears pricking and straining to hear any sound, she hears the heavy thud of the ruthless soldier's boots not twenty feet away from her position. As she tries to sink into the ditch and will herself soundless and invisible a familiar distant humming fills her with hope- a UAV! The stargate was working, the SGC was searching for survivors- for her! Her hope is short-lived though as bursts of fire blast through the tree canopy close by bringing down the UAV.

Praying the supersoldier won't be curious enough to inspect the destroyed machine, she wills her broken body to emerge from the undercover and follow the trail of smoke to the wreck. To her immediate relief she finds a single missile still intact. A plan of action formed, she receives a burst of renewed energy and purpose. The mental undertaking of rewiring the missile to fire manually pushes the fear and exhaustion that has been consuming her for over a day out of her mind as her fingers and brain work seamlessly together making light work of the task. No sooner than she has reworked the circuitry than her target marches into view. Now or never: heart hammering, adrenaline surging she launches the missile smack bang into her pursuant. Enveloped in dust and dirt the relentless and seemingly invincible assailant is destroyed. It's all over. Yet again her wits and endurance have saved her. Pride, relief and that unyielding exhaustion all wash over her as she moves to inspect her success. 

As she reaches the rubble mound she gives in to that yearning to rest and process what has happened. She crouches down in the dust and debris before setting her thoughts on how next to struggle back towards the gate and get back home safe and sound-

Dust crumbling, debris rumbling, stones rolling- no it isn't possible. It had taken a direct hit, it has surely been obliterated. No, no.. what is there left to do? The black armoured menace raises its unscathed form from the sand with strength and Sam feels her own drain away into the ashes. Every drop of sweat has already been shed, all of her energy has been utterly spent coming this far, surviving this long. Every muscle in her battered limbs are screaming in protest at any thought of movement. Not even a last pitiful wave of adrenaline can spur her body into action now. Just before she accepts the end a flicker of thought of her father floats into her mind. She feels bad she'd berated her father over coffee in their last conversation. Then her mind quickly darts to the Colonel... to Jack. He must know she's here; the drone had shot down the UAV signalling their position. Was he even here on the planet searching for her? Of course he is, how could she question that... but he'll soon find her lifeless body... and with that last thought of regret, she watches the towering supersoldier lock its soulless eyes on her and raise its powerful arm aimed at her, and braces for the would-be reaper to bring forth its burst of fire and pummel her body. She can't help but gulp in fear as she accepts and almost welcomes the end-

Loud shots from behind the drone burst through the moment and as the supersoldier is momentarily distracted a final stab of energy drives her body into action and she ducks for cover leaving Teal'c's powerful form to confront the soldier. From behind her a determined Colonel O'Neill appears from the treeline and reading his mind she hands over the prototype she'd almost lost her life guarding and he finishes the job.

"Is it-?" Sam can't even summon the strength to complete her question. She sinks in both sheer relief and pure fatigue at his affirmative, and so incredibly beaten and drained she unashamedly accepts her commanding officer's offer of comfort, resting her head on his shoulder. The familiar smell and warmth of her commanding officer washes over her and she immediately feels safe and soothed and can’t help but succumb to the tidal wave of sleep crashing down on her.


	2. "It's not stupid Sam, you've been through a lot"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam's safely back at the SGC, but does she feel safe?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again thank you so much to tinknevertalks for beta-ing!

Chapter 2: "It's not stupid Sam, you've been through a lot"

Sam had awoken to the face of her concerned-looking father keeping vigil by her bedside in the infirmary.

“I’ll miss you,” whispers Sam, the bright lights of the facility adding to the sting in her eyes from the fresh news of her father’s departure.

“I’ll miss you too,” replies her father as he turns away, concluding their brief conversation, leaving her alone to her thoughts.

All is still and quiet on the ward and in the dim corridor outside. Sam wonders if it’s night time, and concludes that she doesn’t even know what day it is, let alone the time of day. She takes time to assess her body- her muscles ache and her injured leg throbs in time to the pounding of her head, and her mouth is incredibly dry. She can’t recall how she’d gotten back from the devastated Alpha Site though her stomach gives an uncomfortable lurch as her mind produces an image of the last position she remembers being in- with her head rested on the Colonel’s shoulder.

As she tries to stifle the embarrassment at imagining herself falling asleep on the Colonel's shoulder and the feelings that conjures in her, she notices a cup with a drinking straw on the table beside her bed. She reaches over to grasp it but her sore muscles fail to clutch the cup in time with her tired brain's instructions, and it hits the floor with a splatter, spilling its contents beside the half-pulled curtain around her bed, and rolls out of sight. 

The pooling water on the floor seeping from under the curtain brings forth a memory of seeing a dead lieutenant's body thrown away by the initial blast that had stained the surrounding dirt with a thick red. Her mind's eye then jumps to the open wound on her leg bleeding, and then to the river that she had sought to relieve her thirst from when the supersoldier had fired upon her. 

She suddenly feels exposed sitting on the bed and becomes aware that the curtain to her right is obscuring part of her surroundings. She rushes to yank the curtain back giving full view of the empty beds beside her; the sound of the curtain rings sliding across the overhead pole is startlingly loud in the otherwise quiet room and her body reacts to the sudden noise. 

Tension builds and she's back in the state of alert she had been in back on the Alpha Site; ears pricked again, hairs standing on end, body ready to react if the black hunter locks onto her position. She tries to calm herself but the bleeps on the heart monitor quicken, signalling her location to any nearby enemy. Right on cue Sam's senses detect the sound of footsteps approaching her as she jumps off the bed, wires holding her in place.

"Sam you're awake. Are you okay?" Janet utters as she takes in the sight of the half-panicked Major. She moves to soothe her friend and get her back on the bed where she can do a full assessment of her patient's mental well-being.

"Janet." She half-smiles, relieved to see her friend. "Sorry, it's stupid, it's like I was back on the planet being chased by that- thing again."

"It's not stupid Sam, you've been through a lot," replies Janet in the most comforting voice she can manage. "Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c filled me in on what must have happened. They said after tracking you being hunted by that supersoldier for over a day they found you face to face with it as it was about to, you know..." and she raises an arm to rest on Sam's shoulder, whose eyes are lowered and unfocused. 

A vivid memory plays in her mind. The taste of dust falling in the air, the sight of her silent would-be killer's expressionless black face towering above her, the feeling of utter exhaustion and helplessness in her heart, the secret desire for the drone to just end it all- and as she recalls it raising its arm to fire the last shot suddenly Sam doesn't want Janet's arm of comfort anywhere near her. She bats it away and scooches back towards the head of the bed eyes darting around the room willing herself back into the present.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have-" Janet states, keeping any sense of surprise hidden under her professional mask.

"Sorry, I just- I just need a moment," Sam breathes and tries to focus her eyes on Janet, attempting to pull herself together and reform the brave soldier mask she craves to show everyone.

"Nothing to be sorry for," Janet replies. "I'll give you a minute." She turns, noticing the open straw cup on the floor, scoops it up, and moves to pull the curtain next to the spill closed to give her friend some privacy.

"No!" Sam cries out jumping to her feet to stop the action. Janet's eyes jump from Sam's alarmed face to the heart monitor betraying her fear and after finally succeeding to calm her patient she leaves the ward to her office, heels clicking, and picks up the phone.


	3. “Of course, Carter. Any time.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack visits Sam in the infirmary.

Chapter 3: “Of course, Carter. Any time.”

She must have dozed off slightly because she awakes to the sound of a familiar grumbling voice conversing with the higher toned voice of the Chief of Medicine out of sight in the corridor beyond the infirmary door. They are almost out of earshot but she picks up phrases such as ‘she’s quite jumpy’ and ‘curtain’ and much to her embarrassment ‘needs someone with her’.

On the one hand she isn’t yet ready to face her Commanding Officer- she hasn’t rebuilt her walls yet- but still she craves his presence. No one knows her as well as he does, and though he always claims he’s ‘a man of few words’ he always seems to say- or do- the right thing for her. 

The conversation seems to end. Not being able to bear the thought of showing any sign of weakness to her CO, the moment he stands in the doorway she puts on her best Soldier Sam face and gives a bright, “Sir!”.

If there had been any trace of a smile on her face it’s gone in an instant. The figure of Colonel O’Neill is replaced by the form of the supersoldier bursting through the research lab door, where she and her father had been hastily destroying their equipment before they were found. Lieutenant Glenn falls dead on the floor in an instant, smoke rising from his back with the smell of charred meat filling the lab-

“Carter!” barks O’Neill. She hadn’t noticed he had already reached her bedside looking worried. “You clocked out for a second. You okay?”

Disorientated, after a pause Sam replies with her standard, “I’m fine, Sir,” and tries to hide her trembling hands by adding, “Really, Sir, I’m fine,” but of course her commanding officer can see right through her lie. 

“Carter, you’ve been through hell, and quite frankly you like hell,” he states. 

’Great,’ she thinks, looking down. 

“Urm, Janet thought you might want this,” he says to change the topic and hands her a new cup of water. Wanting to occupy her hands she accepts it and drinks steadily, trying to stave off the temptation to gulp it all down.

“You been filled in on the whole Alpha Site situation?” he asks. 

She almost chokes on the water as he informs her they’d recovered bodies in the tens already with sixty-four people still unaccounted for. She realises that she’s been in her own bubble of survival and recovery and hadn’t given a single thought to the other men, women, Tok’ra and Jaffa on the planet at the time of the attack. A huge cloud of shame and guilt looms over her as she quietly absorbs the information from the Colonel: the interrogations Hammond conducted of the Tok’ra and Jaffa, the breakdown of the talks between the two races, and the failure to find the informant to Anubis of the prototype and its location. 

When the Colonel is done talking she finds it hard to say anything as she continues to berate herself internally for being so self-centred with her lack of concern for others, for having to be rescued at the last second by her team and then having to be carried back home because she’d fallen asleep? Then for being so weak that she was having flashbacks when being chased by bad guys was par for the course for a member of SG-1… 

She feels the Colonel’s eyes on her waiting for her to say something about all he’s filled her in on but all she manages to come out with is the comment, “Guess we all had a rough time, Sir,” and went back to staring down at her now empty cup.

“Yeah,” sighs the Colonel, then seemingly wanting to lighten the mood he adds, “Well Teal’c had a blast. You know how he loves tracking down and killing bad guys. T was in his element,” he finished with a grin in his voice.

Sam however doesn’t meet his face and continues to stare at her cup, remembering how her father had shot the drone twice in the lab, then with a grimace she recalls the supersoldier’s form rising from the missile blast she’d set at it. She notices that with the Colonel nearby she doesn’t seem as affected by the flashbacks.

“It just, it just wouldn’t die, Sir,” Sam says finally. She looks up and meets his eyes briefly but O’Neill’s expression is unreadable, he seems to have given up on using humour and is now giving her the time she needs to open up and talk about her experience. 

“It just wouldn’t stop. It never tired, it just kept hunting me so I just had to keep running.” She felt somewhat embarrassed at stating something so obvious, so she finishes with, “Thank you for coming for me, Sir.”

“Of course, Carter. Any time,” he smiles, their eyes meeting. “And I’m proud of you.”  
Sam blushes but he continues. “It must have been scary being hunted by that thing but you never gave up-”

“But I did, Sir!” She isn’t sure who is more surprised by this sudden outburst and hastily tries to scramble together a brave soldier face as if it would repeal her words.

“What are you talking about Carter?” he asks perplexed. “We saw the UAV wreckage, you rigged a freaking missile to go off, if that‘s giving up then I don’t know what-”

But Sam shakes her head sadly. She isn’t sure if she wants to go on but it seems a bit late in the conversation to back down now.

“That missile hit it, it was buried in the rubble. I thought it was dead. But when it wasn’t I was just so exhausted from running and out of ideas I couldn’t move.” She pauses, then continues on to confess, “I was prepared to just let it kill me, Sir."

“Carter-”

“And even worse, Sir, you saw me. Saw me just sitting there helpless having given up as it was going to shoot me,” she adds, tears threatening to bud in her eyes, cheeks flushed with shame. “What kind of soldier does that make me?” 

“Carter, no one on this base- barring Teal’c of course- could have survived being pursued by an Anubis drone for that long. And with an injured leg, no less. No one else would have had the ingenuity to rig a UAV missile. No one else-”

“But I still gave up, Sir. Everyone expects me to be the smart one who always figures out an idea at the last moment, but I just had nothing-”

“Carter,” he interrupts, “How do you think Teal’c and I made your position in time?”

“Sir?” They lock eyes.

“Carter, you setting off that missile led us straight to you. Teal’c and I heard the explosion and ran straight there. You’d already done enough, Carter. You saved yourself. Sure Teal’c and I stole credit for finishing the job- sorry for that- but it was all you. Hell, you even built the weapon that killed it in the first place!” he finishes, smiling.

And Sam manages to smile back, tears dancing in her eyes. He really did know what to say sometimes.

“Thank you, Sir,” 

“Any time,” he repeats. 

Their eyes still meeting, the moment lingers. She wonders if she should apologize for having to be carried back when he finally says:

“I really am proud of you, Carter. The mission was quite a doozy but you made it.”  
Sam nods before he adds, “You gonna be okay?” 

“Yes, Sir,” she answers with a genuine smile this time.

“Good. So, need anything?” he asks to break the tension. “Yo-yo? Blue jell-o? National Geographic magazine?”

“Actually I could do with some jell-o, Sir”.

“Your wish is my command,” he says making a mock bow, and swiftly spins on his heel to head to the cafeteria.

And Sam knows she won’t have to deal with any more flashbacks as she awaits the Colonel’s return with her favoured dessert. She knows she’ll be okay, because he’s always there for her. Any time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading my first every fanfic!! It's not necessary but I would really appreciate comments and feedback! I've acquired lots of story ideas over the long years as a stargate fan but just haven't managed to write any down until now. Busy life and all. But nice comments will probably spur me on to pen down another fic *cute puppy eyes*


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